Why copper still rules the motherboard trace • Hacker News Board

Re: Why copper still rules the motherboard trace

#21

Post by rkangel » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 10:00 AM UTC

Schlagbohrer wrote: post #17

cyberax wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is not great for bulk traces, it has worse conductivity (thermal and electric) than copper. It's used for coatings because of its corrosion resistance and its incredible ductility. Silver would be better than copper, but the difference is not large (~8%) enough to justify the price differential.

For those of us who appreciate PCBs as works of art, it never occurred to me that I could make a silver plated board just as a flex.

I think that in addition to the cost you would also have a corrosion problem. That's usually the reason that silver isn't used as an engineering material.

Re: Why copper still rules the motherboard trace

#22

Post by Skwid » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 3:00 PM UTC

lucasfletcher wrote: post #16

Skwid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiously, I reverse searched a few of the alleged author's images and did get one exact match. On that site they were an Anonymous beauty blogger in a testimonials banner. That site also had a larger version of the same image with plenty of early stable diffusion style artifacts. Curious to know the process here, is it really easier to steal someone else’s slop than make your own these days?

Can you prove it pls?

I can't prove anything, but if you're keen here are the breadcrumbs I was was referring to:

Author Profile: https://psyll.com/elena

Author Image: https://psyll.com/assets/image/qzqgr7sazazf5o1iigkjtlbf-w84-...

The other site: https://sooryehan.org/

The full size image: https://sooryehan.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Face-1.jpeg

I notice you've submitted a few of these links, are you in some way affiliated with psyll?

Re: Why copper still rules the motherboard trace

#23

Post by M95D » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

When I read articles like this what I really think about is not the enormous performance of modern computers, but how wasteful the software is.

Re: Why copper still rules the motherboard trace

#24

Post by lucasfletcher » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 9:07 AM UTC

Skwid wrote: post #22

lucasfletcher wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you prove it pls?

I can't prove anything, but if you're keen here are the breadcrumbs I was was referring to: Author Profile: https://psyll.com/elena Author Image: https://psyll.com/assets/image/qzqgr7sazazf5o1iigkjtlbf-w84-... The other site: https://sooryehan.org/ The full size image: https://sooryehan.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Face-1.jpeg I notice you've submitted a few of these links, are you in some way affiliated with psyll…

Thank you very much! This is very interesting.

Yes, I have written a few articles for Psyll, mostly on politics and geopolitics.

I also became a partial owner of Psyll.com five days ago, so your post is particularly relevant to me. I will look into this matter thoroughly and investigate what happened.

Thanks again for bringing this to my attention!